


The Crooked King

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Mad King Ryan, Medieval AU, king AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 04:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3636732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new king has appeared out of nowhere, one that claims to have good intentions and seems to lead with a steady and patient hand. Some dare to hope that maybe, just maybe, this ruler will be better than the others. They hope, but soon war is on the horizon and their king changes for the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crooked King

**Author's Note:**

> What's this? A new story? Yep! Hope you guys like it. Not sure when the next chapter will be up so enjoy this prologue for now. (This fic is actually slightly inspired by the song The Crooked Kind by Radical Face)

The plain was an inky black, the grasses reaching up and clinging to his arms. The wind whistled and whipped his hair around his face, obscuring everything around him. Not that there was much to see. The jagged shadows in the distance, he supposed, were trees, and the figured moving were animals or some such thing. It was unbelievably cold, so cold it numbed his hands under the thin leather gloves he wore. The cold seemed to wrap itself around him, freezing the very breath in his lungs and the blood in his body. He opened his mouth to yell, to call out, but he couldn't quite get his voice to work. "Demon! Show yourself!" He tried to yell, only succeeding in flinging the words to the wind.

He almost thought of giving up, of returning, but there wasn't much to return to. His village had been burned, his family butchered or carted off to the slavers that always patrolled the kingdom's docks. He wasn't sure which one was better. The simple fact of it was he had no home anymore, no house to return to and no family to welcome him. He had never been quite close with his kin, but, now that they were gone, there was only a hole left in the space they had once occupied.

He'd returned home, back to the village, after a long day of hunting, his aurochs laden down with pelts and weapons and supplies. He had come back to a burned out crater, a dead shell of his home. He knew who did it. It had been the king's men, his soldiers, scoping out the lands straddling the kingdom's borders. He knew who had done it, and he was angry about it. Fury, hatred, those weren't the right words. It was just hot, smoldering anger that refused to die out. It had lasted so long that he wasn't sure if it was still the king he hated so much and just the fact that he had been absent in his family's last hours.

He tried again to shout, and this time the words found their way through the air, ringing around the desolate landscape. "I've come to make a deal!"

The earth lurched from under him, mountains of shadows growing around him, eyes staring at him from every ledge and crevice. Shadows danced around the rocks and the wind blew ever harder. A huge, obsidian giant loomed above him, the red eyes gleaming down at him. "And what would that deal be?" It asked, the voice rumbling through his core.

"I want to be king," he said without hesitation. He had thought of this extensively. He wanted a home, something huge and magnificent and giant, something so much better then his old life. He wanted a family, not necessarily in blood, and he wanted something that couldn't be crushed beneath the foot of a careless king. "I want a kingdom to rule and subjects to guide."

The demon seemed to smile at him, the red pinpoints that served as eyes swinging down closer, as if to scrutinize him. "Many men wish to be king. Many men do not last very long." It seemed to laugh. "Many men find that what they wish is not what they want. All men have a reason for wanting what they do. What is yours?"

"I want to have a home, I want to lead a kingdom and I want to-"

The demon cut him off with the same laugh as before, rattling and shaking his bones and the rocks around them. "Many men lie, as well. You want to make a deal? You need to tell the truth, even if you don't know it yourself."

He was silent, longer than he would have liked. As every second ticked by the lights around him seemed to grow dimmer, as of the creatures around them had become disinterested by the strange peasant that had found his way into their realm. The demon said he had to tell the truth, so he opened his mouth to do so. "I am here because I wish for revenge." He closed his eyes and tried to bring up even his darkest desires and motives from the bottom of his heart. "I am here because I am tired of being a peasant, because I am tired of being nothing but an ant to be ground under the king's boot. I am here because my family is gone, and I want to be more then they ever were."

"That's better," the demon boomed, and in an instant the red lights bloomed again, and he knew that they were not alone, not even close. "Now, you say you want to be king. Everyone wants to be king. What are you willing to pay for it?"

"Anything," he heard spill from his lips and regretting it immediately. The words were said, though, and he could not take them back. The demon smiled, and he could tell even if he could not see its face. He felt something cold run across his spine, and he knew in an instant that this was an ill advised endeavor.

"Anything? Do you truly mean that?" Before he could open his mouth to reply the demon was already talking. "Well, that's good to hear. And, fortunately for you, I am feeling quite generous today. I will give you your kingdom, I will make you a king. But," it said, and this was when he felt his heart drop like a stone, "It will be under my conditions."

"What would those be?" He asked, dreading the answer.

"You will only retain your own mind for as long as there is peace. On the day the Northern King dies is the day you will have to battle demons far worse than I. Every man, woman, and child you or your men kill will haunt you to your dying day and maybe even past that. You will hear their voices, feel their pain, know their fear." The demon grinned a terrible, wicked grin. It dripped malice and cunning, it spoke of terrible things to come and warned him that this deal was not worth it. "And it will break you."

He knew he shouldn't accept, he knew that he was selling his soul for the crown. He couldn't find himself caring that much, though. He had no life to go back to, no home. There was no hope for him anymore. He might as well go out with a bang. This was the day, the hour, the moment that his life ended and a new one began, one where he wasn't some farmer on another man's land. One where his life meant something, where he wouldn't just fade into nothing. This was where his life changed, for better or for worse. "I accept these terms," he finally said.

There was a gust of wind, a blackness that covered his vision like a veil. It cleared, and he was standing in a field, an aurochs grazing a few feet away from him. He wondered for a moment if he had dreamed it all, but a voice next to him said, "You might want to consider a new name. There's already a King James, and most kings have a family name."

He glanced over to see a man staring at him, dressed in black furs and leathers, scorched chainmail hanging under his cloak. His eyes were a piercing red and a crown was lazily held by a finger out to him. He took it carefully, and as soon as his hand made contact with it his skin smoked and burned, and he yelled, dropping the piece of metal. On the back of his hand was a burn in the shape of a crown, a jagged crack serrating the headpiece. He leaned down and carefully picked it up again and this time it didn't hurt quite as much. "Ryan," he said slowly, thinking it over in his mind. "King Ryan Haywood." He looked at the demon who only smiled knowingly. "I suppose you will be my Hand. Edgar." He glanced at the aurochs, slightly guilty for stealing its name.

The demon nodded. "Someone will have to keep you in line," he seemed to joke, in a tone that suggested that he knew exactly what was to come. He put the crown on slowly, resigning him to the fate he had dug for himself. The demon looked on, feeling the strings of fate slowly twist to accommodate for this new king. King Ryan Haywood, or, as he would become known as, the Mad King.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, first chapter. Tell me what you guys think!


End file.
